Cat's Paw Nebula - New Webb Image

Cat's Paw Nebula - New Webb Image
Oktay Yürük aka Oktay74tn, science and tech content
https://imgur.com/user/Oktay74tn

The James Webb Space Telescope captured this impressive image of the Cat's Paw Nebula NGC 6334. With its infrared camera, it was able to see through the clouds and capture structures never seen before. The Cat's Paw Nebula is a star-forming region with a size of 80 to 90 light-years. The three toe beans look like a feline footprint.

The Cat's Paw Nebula, at the top left in this map, is 4000 light years away from the Sun. It is located in the Carina-Sagittarius arm, which is the neighbor of the Orion arm.

The toe bean at the top was named Opera House due to its circular, tiered-like structure. The origin of the blue glow is at the bottom of the picture. It could be the light from the bright yellow stars or from a nearby source inside the dense, dark brown dust cloud.

The yellow star in the middle of the picture has pushed material away from its immediate surroundings. It has created a shell of gas and dust. Massive stars with a short lifespan quench further star formation with their strong radiation.

There is a fork-shaped area with filament structures to the left of the Opera House. It is a star formation region. The process of star formation from molecular clouds is not yet fully understood.

This ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) image shows a protostar in a protocluster of the Cat's Paw Nebula. New material falls onto the protostar and causes an intense growth spurt. Its luminosity increases by a factor of 100, which reshapes the surrounding region.

In the bottom left toe bean there are several blue giant stars with a mass of about 10 solar masses. There is a light red oval structure at the top right.

It is a dense region that has just started star formation. The material is illuminated by the newly formed stars. The bow shock at the bottom left was caused by ejected material from a bright source. It is assumed that the Sun was formed 4.6 billion years ago in a similar stellar nursery.

Cat's Paw Nebula (NIRCam Image)
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2025/129/01JY2AEHHAE4057AGG56YHW1CQ

NASA's Webb Scratches Beyond Surface of Cat's Paw for 3rd Anniversary
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-129

Newborn Stars Blow Bubbles in the Cat’s Paw Nebula
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/newborn-stars-blow-bubbles-cats-paw-nebula/

James Webb Space Telescope celebrates 3 years of science with dazzling 'toe beans' image of Cat's Paw Nebula
Sharmila Kuthunur
https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/james-webb-space-telescope-celebrates-3-years-of-science-with-dazzling-toe-beans-image-of-cats-paw-nebula

Webb telescope captures images of new stars forming in Cat's Paw Nebula
Kerry Breen
https://www.yahoo.com/news/webb-telescope-captures-images-stars-190331719.html

Wikipedia articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6334
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6357
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina-Sagittarius_Arm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H_II_region